Embarkment: I had read reviews about how quickly people got on board the ship, and they were so right. We had a rental car, so we dropped the luggage off early. When we came back, took 5 minutes to get through security, less than one minute to get to the counter to get to a person for our key cards, than less than 5 minutes to get our pictures taken and onboard the ship. I was amazed. Best embarkment process by far.

Balcony: We love balcony rooms, we enjoy sitting out there and being by ourselves. We were on the top row of balconies and overlooked the ones below us. Not sure I would want to be looked upon, so I was glad we were high up. Our room was adequate, it is what is expected on a cruise ship. We always wish the bathrooms were a little bigger but we get by. Room was cleaned thoroughly every day and our room steward was very helpful when needed.

Food: We enjoyed all the food with the exception of the buffet, we thought this was a crazy mess. I thought the layout was too crammed together, I prefer other cruise lines designs much better. This was in a confined space and hard to move around. I always felt people were running into each other. We only had lunch here on the first day and breakfast one other day. We kept to the dining rooms, the International Cafe, or the pizza grill. Pizza was great, the international cafe was great, and the dining room food was mostly okay. I found it a little to fancy for my tasting. They had a set menu for each night as well as a set of alternatives they offered every night. We did find ourselves eating off the alternative menu quite a bit. The beef wellington on Thursday night was delicious. We chose to do the standard 8:15 seating, we love getting to know our waiters and loved them dearly, by the 3rd night our drink of choice was waiting for us at our table. We tried the any time dining one night and hated it, the service was slow and not personable at all. We will always do the traditional dining. Read more